Specimen

“I’m okay now,” I tell her.

“I can’t believe they did that to you. We have a debriefing with everyone in an hour to go over what happened to you, but I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“They want to know what happened. Dr. McCall is convinced they got to you somehow, bypassed all the security in your implants to turn you into some kind of spy for the Carson Alliance.”

Riley pauses and glances at the mirror. When she meets my eyes again, her stare is intense.

“There are still guards posted outside the door,” she says, “and probably a dozen more in the room behind the mirror, monitoring you. The techs say there’s no way to break through the implant’s safeguards, but it may take some convincing.”

I blink as I take in her expression. She’s warning me. She wants to make sure I know someone is listening to us right now, and I need to be careful about what I say. I’ve not mentioned my name or anything else about me since she first found me. She has no idea how much I know, and she’s warning me not to tell her now.

“They didn’t get into the implants,” I say. “At least, not in that way. I think they were trying, but Spat couldn’t make it work.”

“He was there? You saw him?”

“He was.”

Riley rubs her temple and thinks for a moment before she glances at the clock on the wall.

“It’s almost time,” she says. “Let me check one more thing.”

She takes me by the hand and leads me over to the cabinet by the sink and shower. She crouches and starts to shuffle through the clothing in the bottom, motioning me to crouch with her.

“Listen to me carefully,” Riley says quietly. “When you are asked questions, you will tell them everything that happened to you, but you are not to mention any information regarding your identity or anything that could lead to that information. Understood?”

I nod.

“Something isn’t right here,” she mutters before she pulls a blue shirt out of the cabinet and stands. “Put this one on. I’m pretty sure Colonel Mills is going to be there, and I like this color on you.”

She smiles sweetly as she hands me the shirt. I take it from her, dress quickly, and follow her out of the lab.

She is right about the guards. There are six of them, and they follow along as we head to a part of the medical center I haven’t been to before. We enter a large conference room already filled with people. I sit in the chair Riley points out to me, and she sits beside me.

Isaac and Dr. Rahul enter the room and sit opposite us. There are other doctors there I haven’t met before as well as several members of the technical team. I am not introduced to any of them, and they already know who I am. A few minutes later, Captain Mills and Colonel Graham Mills walk in and take the two seats at the head of the table.

I’m nervous. I have no idea what is expected of me in a setting like this, and I’m afraid I will slip up and say something about my identity. Then I realize Riley has given me a direct order not to speak of such things.

She did that on purpose.

There is no way I can accidentally divulge anything about my past. I look over at her, but she is focused on her tablet. If she were lying all this time about how I got here, why would she intentionally help me hide it now?

“You doing okay?”

I glance at Isaac. No one else knows he’s spoken.

“Better,” I tell him in the same manner.

“They really did a number on you,” he says.

“They aren’t the only ones,” I murmur back.

“What do you mean?”

I look straight at him.

“How do you think you got here?” I ask.